Trip Completed with Pictures
We got on the road Friday morning about 8am. We headed east on I-8 from San Diego and going up the mountains we saw the snow from the storm that passed thru a couple days earlier. We stopped in Yuma for gas, lunch and to hit a bookstore to pick up a copy of Backcountry Adventures Arizona, which we could not buy locally. This proved to be a wise move as without it, we would have most likely gotten lost. We made it to Ajo, AZ about 3pm their time (lost an hour with the time difference). Got our permits and headed to our first camp at Papago Wells. It's about 40 miles in from Ajo and is a fairly mild dirt road. We did encounter our first mud/water on the trail which wasn't too bad but we had hoped to miss. Got to camp after dark, set things up, which for the Kamparoo is fairly quick. Made dinner, got things cleaned up and checked out the great view of the stars. We were only about 40 feet of the trail and heard the Boarder Patrol drive by many times during the night. Outside of them, there is nothing around for miles.
Slept in on Saturday morning and hit the trail about 10:30am. In the daytime you really get a sense of how remote this area is. We kept talking about how it must have been for early travelers. Overall the trail condition was good with the sandy wash fairly firm due to the wet soil underneath. We did hit a few more spots of mud/water but nothing to worry about. We made Tule Wells about 1pm and originally were going to camp there. We made it early enough, we ate lunch, checked out the adobe building (which we saw the log entry from the ExPo trip back in Nov.) and hiked up to the monument. At that point we decided to make our way up Christmas Pass with the idea of camping there. Along the way we found grave sites, what's left of an old homestead site and some spectacular sceanery. We make it across Christmas Pass, which is the most "technical" part of the trail. We had noticed no one has come across this trail since the rains as we had the only tire tracks. We setup camp just on the other side of the pass, up against the mountain. Great spot and absolutely not another soul around.
Got up Sunday morning before the sun rise, which was beautiful. It was cool and crisp being about 40*. It was nice that outside of a light breeze, there was no wind to speak of. First trip we have camped and not felt like in a wind tunnel. Had breakfast and packed everything up for the last of the trip. So far we had traveled about 75 miles on the trails. We still had about another 35 miles to go. We head out and the trail turns into a fairly narrow wash, that had a lot of water come through earlier in the week. It was fairly smooth and no tire tracks at all. Based on the map and GPS, we were going the right way. We finally got to a point where the Boarder Patrol had driven to so we were able to fallow the wash and their tracks. It was really smooth and we clocked along about 35-40 mph. This area goes through the Barry Goldwater Range and there is not much there but a very large, open desert. We got near the end and this is where we found 95% of the mud/water on the whole trip. Luckily this was outside of any sensitive areas and locals had already made trails around these large, sloppy mud holes. We sneaked our way around these and got to the road. We aired the tires up and headed back to San Diego. Includin the stop in Yuma for gas and lunch, we got home about 3:30 and spent the next 1.5 hours power washing the mud off the trailer and Cherokee. I shoveled about 15 pounds of mud out of the gutter. I know why people hate mud.
We had a great time, saw a beautiful and very remote area and found it very relaxing. This was our first trip alone, which was nice in the way of having our own schedule but with the added excitement of knowing you have to rely on yourselves if something happened. Knowing the presence of the Boarder Patrol, we did feel we could find help if it was needed. Highly recommend this trip but at least a week after the rain. As for wildlife, we saw a fox, coyote, Kangaroo rat, black tail hare, ravens and lot of other birds.
You can check all the pictures at
http://gallery.lisaandmike.org/ecdd but here are some of the highlights. Enjoy!!!
Snow on the way out
Sunset on our way to camp the first night
Our first camp spot
Miles upond miles on the trail
